I don't know if you guys give assignments with due dates or not, but I do once in awhile. Sometimes they have to be done during our regular "school" time and other times I want DS to work on it on his own and get used to having to remember once in awhile. Granted, he had reminders all last week, and yet handed in NOTHING this morning.

Come this afternoon he thinks he can play computer. Uh, nope. Not happening.

So he goes upstairs and tells me I hate him and cries for 10 mins. Then I hear, "Where is that stupid book?" About 15 minutes later he emerges with this:

The book I just read is called, The Shakespeare Stealer, by Gary Blackwood. It is a fictional story, with no illustrations. It tells of a boy who is an orphan.

This boy was taken from an orphanage to be apprenticed. After learning a scribble langage claled charactery, though, Widge, as he is called, is merely a servant.

Later, the boy is taken to a new master and told to copy the play, Hamlet, in charactery. The boy fails, and is forced to become a player to escape his master.

I don't like that this book is a bit confusing at times. Things get sort of complicated. I liked that the book was very exciting, and it left me guessing until the end.

6th grade. What would you grade it? I think I'm too annoyed to do so properly.

It depends on what you were wanting from him. As far as writing goes for 6th grade, it's not all that great. His paragraphs are incomplete, he doesn't provide great detail, and his thoughts are not well laid out. It's a 15 minute bit of work when you gave him a week to do it.

BUT, if you're looking at it as a bit of writing to put down his thoughts about a book...he likes it, it's confusing, it's complicated. I don't know. I hate grading things. I also feel that if I'm going to be grading anything, I need to have a rubric. A rubric tells the kid not only your grading scheme (A, B, C, D or 1, 2, 3, 4 or one of your own choosing), but HOW to achieve it. Each paragraph needs to have x number of sentences. You'll use descriptive words. You SHOW me scenes and let me draw my own conclusions about the story. Blah, blah, blah.

It depends on what you were wanting from him. As far as writing goes for 6th grade, it's not all that great. His paragraphs are incomplete, he doesn't provide great detail, and his thoughts are not well laid out. It's a 15 minute bit of work when you gave him a week to do it.

BUT, if you're looking at it as a bit of writing to put down his thoughts about a book...he likes it, it's confusing, it's complicated. I don't know. I hate grading things. I also feel that if I'm going to be grading anything, I need to have a rubric. A rubric tells the kid not only your grading scheme (A, B, C, D or 1, 2, 3, 4 or one of your own choosing), but HOW to achieve it. Each paragraph needs to have x number of sentences. You'll use descriptive words. You SHOW me scenes and let me draw my own conclusions about the story. Blah, blah, blah.

I used a lot of words to tell you I don't have an answer for you. :)

Yeah, this isn't a new type of assignment for him. He's been writing book reports for several years now, he's just being lazy. Hence, my dilemma. Should I just give him a crap grade or have him redo it? But then, I don't feel it's worth a full grade that way because it WAS late. Ugh.

With my kids, and mostly because this is how it was ingrained into me, especially by 6th grade, every paragraph must have at least 5 sentences. The introduction, 2 body paragraphs minimum, and a conclusion. It also is going to depend on what you're looking for in the report. Do you want him to talk about setting, characters, plot, etc, or do you just want a summary and his opinion? I would write suggestions on it, and then have him rewrite it properly, but with a -10% of the overall grade when he does it right for not taking the time to do it correctly the first time around. (I'm a harsh grader usually...)

As a student, I hated redoing work. I wouldn't do it. So, as a teacher, I'm hesitant to make a kiddo redo work. Clearly he wasn't jazzed about the assignment, so he was sassy about it. Unacceptable, but he's not going to be any more jazzed about it the second time. I'd let him take the consequence of a bad grade.

Quoting LostTheSlipper:

Quoting hwblyf:

It depends on what you were wanting from him. As far as writing goes for 6th grade, it's not all that great. His paragraphs are incomplete, he doesn't provide great detail, and his thoughts are not well laid out. It's a 15 minute bit of work when you gave him a week to do it.

BUT, if you're looking at it as a bit of writing to put down his thoughts about a book...he likes it, it's confusing, it's complicated. I don't know. I hate grading things. I also feel that if I'm going to be grading anything, I need to have a rubric. A rubric tells the kid not only your grading scheme (A, B, C, D or 1, 2, 3, 4 or one of your own choosing), but HOW to achieve it. Each paragraph needs to have x number of sentences. You'll use descriptive words. You SHOW me scenes and let me draw my own conclusions about the story. Blah, blah, blah.

I used a lot of words to tell you I don't have an answer for you. :)

Yeah, this isn't a new type of assignment for him. He's been writing book reports for several years now, he's just being lazy. Hence, my dilemma. Should I just give him a crap grade or have him redo it? But then, I don't feel it's worth a full grade that way because it WAS late. Ugh.